Five-alarm fire engulfs high-rise in San Francisco

A major fire burning Tuesday in San Francisco's Mission Bay neighborhood sent an enormous plume of black smoke high into the sky.

There were no initial reports of injuries, fire officials said.

The five-alarm fire that began around 5 p.m. was ravaging a high-rise building under construction and led a wall of the structure to collapse about an hour later. Dozens of firefighters were on the scene.

The cause was not immediately clear.

Fire-suppression systems had not yet been installed in the building, making the battle more difficult, Fire Department spokeswoman Mindy Talmadge said.

Fire Chief Joanne Hayes-White told The San Francisco Chronicle that firefighters had kept the blaze from spreading to nearby structures.

The burning building, owned by BRE Properties, was intended to be a residential one, KTVU-TV reported. It was being built by Suffolk Construction, according to the Chronicle.

Messages left with BRE Properties and Suffolk Construction on Tuesday evening were not immediately returned.

The Mission Bay neighborhood is a onetime industrial area that lies along the San Francisco Bay. It is home to a University of California, San Francisco, medical campus and is close to AT&T Park, the San Francisco Giants stadium.

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